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Protesters gather near the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building to call for more aid to be sent to storm-stricken Puerto Rico. Photo by Amy Zahn

As Puerto Rico continues to feel the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, New Yorkers with ties to the island are experiencing a mounting sense of desperation, not knowing how to help, and in many cases, unable to contact their loved ones at all.

“It’s so desperate. We are all anxious,” said Puerto-Rican born New York resident Juan Recondo at a demonstration to rally support for the island yesterday. “My wife is crying all the time and I completely understand — she hasn’t spoken to her brother for more than a week.”

Recondo, like many of his fellow demonstrators, feels paralyzed in the wake of the storm’s destruction. At least 16 people have died, and millions are without power, clean water and gas, according to a CNN report.

“There’s no way we can help,” Recondo said. “Our hands are tied. This is the only way, trying to get involved in this type of movement.”

Juan Recondo attends a rally in support of the people of Puerto Rico in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Recondo, along with over a hundred other protesters, gathered in Lower Manhattan to call for more aid to be sent to Puerto Rico and to condemn what they see as a slow response to the disaster by the U.S. government.

“I haven’t heard from my family at all, my whole family,” said protester Anthony Zayas, wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag. Aside from his mother, who lives in New Jersey, Zayas’ entire family is in Puerto Rico.

The state of New York is home to over a million people who identify as Puerto Rican, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest number in any state. There are over 5 million Puerto Ricans on the mainland U.S. in total, making them one of the largest Latino groups in the country, second only to Mexicans.

“People are praising Trump, but you know what? He did it too late. It should have been done immediately,” Zayas said, referring to Donald Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act last week, eight days after the storm hit. “We’re American citizens, too.”

The Jones Act, passed in 1920, requires all ships transporting goods between U.S. ports to be built by Americans, and primarily manned by them. Trump lifted it for 10 days to facilitate shipments to the storm-ravaged island.

But despite the difficulties of assisting 3.4 million people — the population of Puerto Rico — there are ways to tailor relief efforts to be as helpful as possible, or at least avoid making things worse unintentionally.

According to Tony Morain, communications director for Direct Relief, a nonprofit that provides medications to hospitals and other health centers in disaster areas, it’s important for people to be mindful about the kinds of supplies they send.

In natural disasters, he said, it’s common for a shortage of truck drivers to combine with an influx of supplies trying to reach an area, creating a bottleneck in aid transport. After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Morain explained that well-meaning people sent nonessential items like stuffed animals and toys, which can clog up ports and slow the distribution of life-saving supplies.

Morain also advised against sending winter clothes, since Puerto Rico has been experiencing high temperatures. Water, food, gas and medicine are the essentials, he said.

As far as longer term help goes, Morain thinks awareness is Puerto Rico’s best bet at recovery.

“Keep this in the news,” he said. “It’s always the case that first people talk about the wind speed of the storm, and then they show palm trees swaying, and then things go dark for a bit because there’s no communication, and then we start hearing stories about how devastating the first response search and rescue is … and then it becomes communities that have been forgotten.”

Robert Perez waits for a pro-Puerto Rico rally to start in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Puerto Rican Americans like protester Robert Perez, whose aunt and sister are stuck on the island, are unlikely to forget anytime soon, and he hopes the government won’t either.

“After the pressure’s put on the government, maybe Mr. Trump will do something,” he said.

Agan is a small town located in Northwestern China, close to Gansu Province’s capital city, Lanzhou. For almost 600 hundred years, the town was rich because of its abundance of coal. But by 2000, after years of exploiting this resource, there was no more coal and the town went bankrupt. Thousands of people lost their jobs. Fifteen years later Agan is little more than a ghost town—young people have moved out, leaving behind their children with their old parents; the coal mine is abandoned and people are living in extreme poverty. This documentary navigates the living conditions of the remaining town residents.

Ross Carlisle, of Brooklyn, holds up at sign at the 2014 TCS New York City Marathon to support his brother who is running the race. The sign references a line from the movie, “The Fast and the Furious” and is an inside joke between the brothers. Photo by Joanna Bouras

by Joanna Bouras

Ross Carlisle, of Brooklyn, searched through a sea of fluorescent runners, with his family in quest of his brother.

Stationed at the 24-mile mark of the 2014 TCS New York City Marathon in Central Park, this afternoon, they waved brightly colored signs as the family cheered and encouraged runners on. Carlisle, 28, was positioned to give his brother the final kick of adrenaline he needed to finish the race.

His brother Lee Carlisle, 30, was running to qualify for the Boston Marathon in April 2015. He has been trying to for several years.

“Its inspiring to see all the different types of runners from people with disabilities to senior athletes,” said Carlise.

With the predicted wind conditions runners knew that it wasn’t going to be a personal best race or a qualifying time race.

Temperatures were at a frigid 52 degrees and wind speeds up to 26mph. Officials said it was slowing down runners by five minutes on average.

“There’s no denying it was a beautiful fall day, said Carlise. “But for a marathon the wind was a bit much.”

Carlise said the most shocking aspect of the marathon was seeing competitors running without shoes on.

“Them some tough toes,” he joked.

Accompanied by his family, he had also been nervous they would miss his brother when large masses of runners came panting through at once. Dressed in a black hat, white shirt, and black shorts, they figured he would be easy to pick out in the sea of colors.

His mom, aunt, and sister had flown in from Ohio to join in cheering his brother on.

Carlisle thought it was heart warming to see all the fans cheering for strangers as a community, especially at a point where everyone is exhausted.

With reddened noses and jumping to stay warm, Carlisle shouted, “Hit the nos breh,” as he held a sign with the words colored on it.

The phrase is an inside joke between the brothers from the movie The Fast and the Furious.

Being at the 24th mile, Carlisle chanted encouraging words at runners that looked like they were struggling.

To give them a boost he cheered their names and offered high fives as they passed by.

This is Carlisle’s first time seeing the race up close.

“It’s usually just another NYC road block on my way to work,” he said. “It’s so nice to see how supportive and friendly everyone is.”

Carlisle and his family picked their race location based on good photo opportunities and where the after parties would be.

“Marathon parties complete with mimosas and bloody marys,” he said.

Carlisle has never participated in a marathon before, but is currently training with New York Road Runners to train for next years.

ASHBURN, VA-Since she was six months old Murielle Tiernan, 18, has been fighting cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes her lungs to produce an excess of thick mucus. But anyone who has seen Tiernan take to the soccer field can see that in the fight against CF she is clearly winning.

Tiernan, a senior at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Va. was recruited by Virginia Tech’s Women’s Soccer team and will begin her career as a Division I athlete this summer.

“The fact that Murielle has been so heavily involved in sports has been therapy and treatment and a health bonus because that’s the ideal circumstance, to go out and run and exercise,” her father, Ed Tiernan said.

Off the field, keeping Tiernan’s lungs as healthy as possible has been her family’s priority since her diagnosis. But as she prepares to head to college, Tiernan is confident that she can adequately administer her own nebulizer and mucus-loosening treatments.

Inside this wooden container sits the flag that covered Johnny Kihm's casket when his body arrived at Dover Air Force base. Photo by Chris Palmer.

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Cecelia Kihm’s life changed the day that two strangers knocked on her front door.

It was April 19, 2011. Kihm, 51, a freckled, sandy-haired pre-school teacher, was at home in her green-carpeted living room watching the television show “Ellen.”

She opened the door to two Army soldiers, standing in uniform on the concrete steps in front of her brick rowhome in the Castor Gardens section of Philadelphia.

“When I looked at them, heat just went down my body,” she said.

Her baby-faced 19-year old son, Johnny, had deployed to Afghanistan a month earlier. Several members of his unit had died already, including three that week.

She invited the soldiers in. After taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she asked them to deliver the news.

Her son was dead, they said. Killed in combat.

During sleepless nights since Johnny had enlisted, Kihm told herself that if this day ever came, she wouldn’t react like characters do in movies. No violent crying, no denial, no hitting the messenger.

But she was overridden with grief. She kept saying, “It’s too soon. It’s too soon.”

She went upstairs to tell her oldest daughter, Marybeth, who was 24 at the time.

“I didn’t even know how to say it,” Kihm said.

Her husband John, just returning from work, collapsed in agony when he saw the two men in his living room. He cried on the adjacent dining room floor.

And Kihm’s middle child, daughter Meghan, who was then 21, threw up after she was told.

This scene – a family torn apart by news of a young soldier’s untimely death – is not uncommon. As of April 28, 2012, nearly 6,500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the Afghan War began in 2001. Thousands more have died in non-hostile situations, through circumstances like training exercises, illness, or by suicide.

According to TAPS research, more than 80 percent of military deaths are traumatic and unexpected, catching family members by surprise. Military families are often thrust into the spotlight after the death, forced to take up the role of spokespeople to the media and strangers who want to honor the family and the fallen soldier. And some military family members suffer from insomnia, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There’s no rulebook to guide families and help them,” Neiberger-Miller said. “It’s a long journey.”

For the Kihms, just over a year after Johnny’s passing, the sadness that comes from being one of those families, shrunken by war, never ends.

“I always feel like I’m stuck in that two week period, from when we found out until when we buried him,” Kihm said. “It doesn’t feel like we just had a year. It doesn’t feel like it at all.”

Once a week, he trained with the Marines, and throughout high school he dreamed of enlisting after graduation.

In March of his senior year, though, he changed his mind. After high school, he spent a semester at the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State University.

But his interest in the military wouldn’t stay suppressed for long. After his first semester of college, Johnny returned home for Christmas break and told his parents he had made up his mind: he wanted to enlist.

Kihm wasn’t exactly thrilled, but she had told her son when he was in high school that she would support him if he decided to join.

“I knew that’s what he wanted,” she said.

Johnny and his parents considered both the Marines and the Army, and eventually decided that the Army would be a better fit. He enlisted, and on March 1, 2010, deployed to basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

“I really thought he was going to be alright.”

Johnny Kihm in his Army gear. Photo provided by the Kihm family.

In June 2010, after completing basic training, Johnny moved to Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division infantry unit. He was supposed to stay there until May 2011, when the unit would be deployed to Afghanistan. But the deployment date was moved up two months. They shipped out on March 17, 2011.

Kihm had two phone conversations and four Facebook chat sessions with Johnny while he was overseas. She kept a record of all the interactions in a datebook.

“I would sit by the computer and just look for that little dot to appear,” she said, waiting for him to sign on to Facebook.

Her last phone call with him was on April 15, 2011. The conversation was brief, but he said they would talk more later.

He died four days after the call.

Before Johnny’s death, the possibility of losing her son never felt real, Kihm said. But now, the reality is inescapable.

Cecelia sends boxes of supplies – cigarettes, magazines, Red Bulls – to Johnny’s unit (a pack of cigarettes is accompanied by a note, telling the soldier on the receiving end that they have to promise to quit smoking).

One of her more recent efforts was to style pillowcases for the unit members.

And after finding out that the soldiers don’t have anything to put into the pillowcases, she decided that her next goal is to figure out a way to send the troops pillows.

Together, the Kihms established a foundation – the Pfc. Johnny Kihm Memorial Fund – that, among other activities, is raising money through events and t-shirt sales to refurbish a United Service Organizations lounge for military members at the Syracuse airport, near Fort Drum (the Kihms declined to say how much money they’ve raised so far).

And they’ve received countless gifts, tokens of support and donations in Johnny’s name – occasionally from complete strangers – which they in turn donate to the foundation, or use to buy supplies for the care packages.

Ingrid Seunarine, a bereavement counselor in New York City who directs grief counseling programs for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, said that it’s common for people to donate time and energy to various causes after the death of a loved one. Doing so, she said, can help individuals cope with the loss, while also honoring the memory of the deceased.

“You have to keep that connection in your heart,” she said.

“It never stops.”

In the year since Johnny’s death, the Kihms have been visited by scores of wounded warriors and other supporters, wishing to pay their respects to the fallen soldier’s family.

Kihm said she has a deep sense of gratitude for the gestures and the soldiers who go out of their way to support them, especially those in the 10th Mountain Division.

“I feel like they’re mine,” she said.

But she also said that at times, unexpected visits, combined with the milestones that pass without her son – Memorial Day, 9/11, his unit’s first extended period of leave – can make it feel “like the viewing day never stops.”

After a few hours of talking about Johnny, with the smell of a home-cooked meal wafting through her living room, the pain in Kihm’s heart surfaced. With her eyes welling up, she recalled a moment that happened at Johnny’s funeral.

During the ceremony, she said, she reached out and touched her son’s closed casket.
Then she put her hand on her husband. Marybeth had her arm around him as well.

Kihm then whispered to Meghan, telling her to reach over and touch Marybeth.

And they formed a chain, linking Meghan, to Marybeth, to John, to Cecelia, to Johnny.

“We were all holding each other,” she said, her voice quivering.

Later that day, the Kihms would bury Johnny at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia.